


Bleed

by signifying_nothing



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Control Issues, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, current events hetalia, mass shooting mentions, vague dom/sub dynamics, vague historical mention hetalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 17:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12753165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: The problem with Alfred, Ivan thinks as he observes the younger nation from across the table, is that he regards every motion from another nation as aggressive. Ivan knows he's part of the problem, but it's not just him Alfred regards as a threat. It's everyone, including his own citizens and lawmakers.





	Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i don't own hetalia, and all of my russian comes from funrussian/learnrussian and i'm not particularly adept, forgive me.

The problem with Alfred, Ivan thinks as he observes the younger nation from across the table, is that he regards every motion from another nation as aggressive. His paranoia is unbelievable, and it's only become worse post Cold War, when the two of them play nice for everyone else where once upon a time they'd been ripping one another to shreds, verbally, physically, emotionally. Ivan knows he's part of the problem, but it's not just him Alfred regards as a threat. It's everyone, including his own citizens and lawmakers. Ivan would pay good money to know who made Alfred think that any incoming touch, any interaction could be considered the first step in an act of violence against him or his people.

Arthur, perhaps, Ivan wonders. Arthur, when Alfred was young and impressionable, had been the Pirate King of the seas; surely he hadn't been the kind to love his brother as he should have. Or perhaps it was just being alone before Arthur found him. Alfred has to be in control of every situation he steps into, otherwise he becomes the aggressor and bad things are left to happen.

Ivan ponders these things and when the meeting is over he rises to leave without speaking to any of the others. He has nothing to speak to them about.

“Braginski! Hey, Ivan, wait up!”

Ivan pauses and turns to look at Alfred, jogging up after him with his messenger bag briefcase bouncing off his hip, his jacket open to show his pale blue button-up. He'd dressed very casually for this meeting, in tight jeans and that pretty shirt, with it's pastel yellow stitching in the gracenotes.

“What is it,” Ivan asks, looking at Alfred, who bends to place one hand on his own thigh.

“Listen I, I gotta talk to you? You got some time?”

He doesn't, not really. He's expected back in Moscow by the end of the next day, but Alfred is lightly flushed and so he nods when he wants to shake his head, following him to a side room and conscientiously locking the door behind them. Alfred hears it but says nothing as he sets his bag down.

“What is it you wish to talk about,” Ivan asks. He already knows, but he wonders if Alfred will swallow his pride and speak his concerns for once. He is, as usual, unsurprised by the way the younger nation attempts at cavalier and ends up sounding small and anxious.

“Nothing important!” Alfred says, his smile stretching too wide across his handsome face. He is so handsome. Honey blond and blue eyed, tall and lithe and pretty. He's still shorter than Ivan for all that, and he shrinks away when Ivan steps closer like a child backing away from punishment. “Just, just some ah, trade stuff.” His lie is not convincing.

“Are you placing embargos?” Ivan asks.

“Of course not,” he says, shaking his head. His hair falls into his eyes. “Of course not, I just—”

“Then what is it you want Jones,” Ivan says, making his voice as cold as possible. It doesn't take much effort to make America flinch when they are alone in the dim light, when Alfred is free to remember Berlin, London, all the places they've used to destroy one another. He can hear Alfred swallow.

“Ivan,” he whispers, and Ivan takes another long step, pushes Alfred against the wall with the breadth of his body. Alfred looks small against the terrible wallpaper. He looks very small and very young, and Ivan is violently reminded that Alfred is not yet honestly a full five centuries old. He reaches out to cup his palm to the side of Alfred's neck, feels his pulse jump and his full body shudder in silence.

“Do you need me to take care of you, Fredka?”

“Ivan,” Alfred's voice is less than a whisper, hardly a breath and it shakes in something like terror as he grabs at Ivan's coat and drags him into a kiss, hard and violent and afraid. Ivan does him the favor of doing what is expected: he asserts dominance by kissing back with force, pushing Alfred against the wall, pinning him there with a thigh between his legs.

This is how one controls the great country of America, Ivan thinks as he gentles his hands and lets them slide beneath that pale blue shirt, gripping Alfred's waist and simply holding on as the kiss becomes sweet. Alfred doesn't know what to do with sweet. Frozen in anxious indecision he is easily manipulated and controlled and Ivan has found nothing in the world quite as satisfying as this: holding America as his willing hostage.

“Sweet boy,” he murmurs when they part, when Alfred is panting and shivering and staring up at him like he used to before the Cold War, before they'd truly started to hurt one another instead of simply posturing. “Sweet boy, on your knees.”

“What? No—”

“Now,” Ivan says, his voice low and firm as he pulls at Alfred's waist and forces him down onto his knees, his back to the wall, his head tilted back. “That's a good boy now. Very good.” Ivan runs his hand over that blond hair, feels the warmth of Alfred's scalp and enjoys how he pushes his head into the motion like an eager cat despite the tenseness of his shoulders, the tightening of his hands on Ivan's thighs. He doesn't resist when Ivan tugs his head closer, against his groin. He doesn't do anything but make a soft sound of pain at the pull of his hair. Ivan looks down at him and Alfred looks up.

“You know what to do, don't you?” Ivan asks, and Alfred swallows. Ivan can see his adams apple bobbing up and down as he nods. “Then do it, boy.”

Ivan wonders if he is merely a replacement for Arthur, as Alfred's fingers work open his belt, the button and zip of his slacks. He wonders if Arthur has had the pleasure of watching Alfred's mouth slide down his cock, has known the pleasure of his tongue, the tight little gag at the back of his throat and wonders if he could kill him so as to keep the sensation all to himself.

He watches Alfred's head disappear beneath his coat and an instant later feels his tongue, then his lips, then his mouth. He sighs as Alfred bobs his head, sliding up and down until Ivan's tip is pressing to the back of his throat, until his lips are soft against wiry pubic hair, his chin resting on Ivan's ballsac.

“You can do better than that, can't you?” Ivan asks, pulling aside his coat and looking down at Alfred, who cannot look up at him with his mouthful. “I know you can. Fuck yourself, boy. I want to hear.”

He feels his belly tighten as Alfred moans, now having a goal to work toward. Stupid child, foolish boy as he moves his head up and down, fucking his throat with Ivan's cock, holding on to his hips to make the movements more forceful. The sick wet sound of his cock pushing past and pulling back from that gag reflex is disgusting and arousing and listening to Alfred choke is almost as good as listening to him scream. Just the thought makes his groin tighten, and he holds Alfred's head in place against his belly until he can feel his throat convulsing, can feel his body anxiously jerking, his fingernails digging into Ivan's hips.

Ivan pulls away, steps back and lets Alfred cough and gasp for air. He is flushed, his eyes watery, and he doesn't protest when Ivan takes his own cock in hand and slaps it against the side of his mouth, his cheek and chin. He slides his tip across Alfred's tongue and looks down at him.

So beautiful, he thinks. So beautiful and so receptive to this. This kind of abuse, this touch: this is familiar, this is safe for him. Ivan is sure Alfred wouldn't know what to do if romanced properly, if wooed in a bed and brought to orgasm by an attentive lover instead of simple overstimulation. God forbid Francis should ever try to take the boy—not that Ivan would allow it to happen. He's stopped several attempts thus far by other nations looking to take advantage.

“Turn around,” he says, and Alfred does not hesitate. He turns, presses his chest to the wall and Ivan sinks to his knees behind him, reaching around his body to unfasten his jeans, urging him further up so he can pull them down his thighs. Straddling over Alfred's legs, Ivan reaches around to force his fingers into the young nations mouth, wiping at the insides of his cheeks to pull a wealth of frothy saliva over his skin. Alfred coughs and chokes and presses his cheek to the wall, shivering when Ivan pushes one finger against and inside of him, two, before pulling away and pressing himself against the smaller man.

The push is hard. Alfred is tense, the position isn't the best, but Ivan moves forward as he always does and claps one hand over Alfred's mouth when his cries become too loud. He can't risk someone finding them. Not when he's buried inside of Alfred, not when the boy is squirming between Ivan's body and the wall, clawing at the wallpaper, bouncing his body back and forth in an attempt to relieve the pressure and pain he so enjoys.

Finally, he stills. Relaxes enough that Ivan can pull back, push forward. Alfred groans quietly and Ivan leans forward to mouth at the back of that beautiful neck.

“Good boy,” he purrs, enjoying the way Alfred trembles at the praise. “That's a very good boy Alfred, my angel. You're so good for me.”

“Ivan,” Alfred whispers It's a warning and a plea.

“That's my boy,” Ivan continues, pushing and pulling, holding Alfred at the throat and squeezing very gently. Alfred pants against the wall, looking back at him with eyes full of hate and need and desperate desire for acknowledgement and safety.

That's what it is, Ivan knows as he fucks into Alfred and the boy bends beneath him like reeds in a river. Safety in the familiar. Ivan fucks him, Alfred doesn't fight, and both parties go home happy. Or something like it.

Alfred cums without Ivan touching him. He's forced into orgasm by the pressure of Ivan's body against his, inside of his, and the wall scraping at his groin as he bounces between it and Ivan's broad chest. It's almost forced. He's not an active participant in this pleasure, and that's what makes it safe. It's like an attack and neither of them will talk about how Alfred purposely left himself wide open to it.

When Ivan pulls away, Alfred slumps down. He bends forward and presses the top of his head to the wall and Ivan, instead of walking away to clean up as he usually would, instead stays behind him. Reaches forward to pull Alfred back into his lap, rubbing a big hand over his belly, the other tipping Alfred's head against his own neck.

The sweat turns cold, but Alfred's tears do not.

He is silent when he weeps. Face twisted, hands in fists, he is silent. He plans cold revenge through his tears. Like after Pearl Harbor, after Nine Eleven, after every single mass shooting he can do nothing about because his citizens won't let him. That's what's happened, Ivan can feel. The information comes to him as his citizens and lawmakers learn the distant and unimportant information that the Americans are killing one another again.

“A church, Ivan,” Alfred whispers, trembling against him. “He killed twenty six people in a _church._ ”

“Yes,” Ivan replies, because he knows. The world knows.

“I hate it,” Alfred bites out his words and Ivan slowly pulls away, allows Alfred to turn around and face him, cling to him, because Ivan is so much older, more worldly, understands violence at it's basest level. Because Alfred needs that now, more than he needs Arthur's lectures on gun safety, more than he needs the world's pity.

“I know.” Ivan thinks of his people starving to death, of wars, of armed men shooting into a crowd of protestors and killing over two hundred people. “I know you do, zvyozdochka.”

Alfred falls to pieces. The term of endearment, a well kept secret from the times when the Russian navy had stood guard during the American civil war, when Ivan knew in his gut that the two of them were destined to always hold another close and be at odds, is permission to come apart at the seams. To weep, to mourn. Alfred clings to Ivan and shakes, whispers of Orlando, of Las Vegas and Sandy Hook and San Bernadino. Newton and Aurora and Fort Hood. He whispers of his murdered innocents and the fools that defend the people who killed them.

“Help me,” Alfred pleads. Ivan kisses his hair, holds him tight. “Help me, oh God please Ivan, help me.”

He cannot help. None of them can. No advice they have given, no pressure they have exerted has been enough to frighten the American lawmakers into changing their ways and most nations believe that if the Americans are killing their own, then it is no concern of theirs.

“Mne ochen' zhal', chto tak poluchilos',” Ivan whispers. “I'm so sorry, Fredka.”

He realizes, with sudden and vague alarm, that Alfred is bleeding. On the right side of his chest, blood drips from a wound like someone has placed a railroad spike against the skin and driven it in, but there is no spike to be seen. Alfred is laughing. He is laughing and crying and pressing his hands against the hole in his body but the blood seeps from between his fingers.

“Make it stop,” Alfred sobs like a child, like it is the civil war all over again and he is torn between two factions that hate one another so much that they are willing to kill to get their way. War is what happens when men will do anything for their cause. When no cost is too great, war becomes inevitable, and Alfred must be well on his way to it all over again. “Make it stop, make it stop.”

In the dark, half-nude and warm, with Alfred half-perched on his lap with his back to the wall, Ivan wraps one big arm around his willowed waist and kisses his face, attempts to comfort him. He rocks Alfred until the younger nation has slumped into an exhausted unconsciousness, still bleeding, the blood of his people—his own blood—all over his hands.

Ivan gathers Alfred up into his arms and carefully carries him to a nearby couch. He lays the younger nation down and cleans first himself, then Alfred. He pulls the clothing back on that tanned body and lets his hand rest where Alfred's heart should be beneath that pale blue material and yellow stitching. He kneels beside the still form, usually so animated and excitable, and kisses his head. “Zvyozdochka,” he whispers. “Someday this will not happen anymore. Someday your people will learn.”

Until then, Ivan will hold him. Will take away the control he needs so desperately to give him a moment of peace in times that make him feel as though he is being ripped into pieces. They speak the language of violence, they use their bodies to cause great harm but those who know how to cause incredible pain are also capable of awesome pleasure, even affection.

Ivan lays a throw blanket over Alfred's redressed body. He pushes back that blond hair and removes Texas from Alfred's face, thinking that it might be best if they were not so close, for now. Sutherland, he knows, is in Texas. A tiny little fracture in the glass, he can see it in the dim light. A tiny imperfection in what should have been a smooth plain of reflection.

Ivan leaves Alfred to sleep, and quietly exits the room. He is face-to-face with Arthur, who glares up at him and Ivan cannot find the will to deal with him. Not when his greatest enemy and ally is lying prone in the other room because his people are pulling him apart at the seams like he is some kind of doll.

“How is he,” Arthur asks, as Ivan strides easily past him.

“He will survive,” Ivan replies, cold and still.

“That's not what I asked,” Arthur says, and Ivan hesitates, looks back at Arthur. The nation stands firm and strong, though he says nothing else.

“Check on him yourself,” Ivan says, his voice high and disgusted. “He's your brother, after all.”

Arthur levels him a look so full of fury and resentment that Ivan can't help but smile in return. Arthur knows that he can no longer comfort Alfred, not in the way that he wants to, not in the way that he used to. It is up to the superpowers to take care of one another now, and nothing stands between them. It is the two of them against one another, against the world, with their backs to the wall and knives ever at their back and that is why the two of them need one another. Need the violence and the quiet, the tender little moments they will both deny later, if asked.

Ivan walks away from where he's left Alfred asleep in that room, a wound scarring over, his hands smeared as clean as Ivan could manage with spit and his scarf. It is America's blood that he smells and tastes when he speaks into the phone about his return flight to Moscow, and the tang of it does not please him as it should. Somehow he enjoys it less, when it is not him exerting power and force over Alfred, wounding him. The taste is not as sweet, but he supposes that the bitter flavor of desperation can be enjoyable, in its own way.

When he next sees Alfred, the younger nation is dressed in the sleek dark suit of a pallbearer. When their eyes meet, Ivan knows that he will be taking Alfred in a quiet room, a hand clapped over his mouth as Alfred sobs wretchedly in pain, a punishment he seeks and sets upon himself.

Ivan will indulge him. He will take care of him as he always has, and always will.

 

**Author's Note:**

> “Mne ochen' zhal', chto tak poluchilos'," is the romanized translation for, "I'm sorry it/this happened."  
> "Zvyozdochka" is a term of endearment meaning, "little star."
> 
> i have a lot of feelings and i am very anxious posting this.


End file.
